Historical and factual errors have long marred the study materials of the DU School of Open Learning despite calls for reform. ‘A major procedural lapse,’ said Maya John, DU Academic Council member.
With more focus on traditional culture & national security, new textbooks will be rolled out next week and by 2026 will be taught to all grades in primary classes and junior high.
The Delhi launch of ‘The Routledge Companion to Primary Education in India’ by Prof R Govinda was a layered discussion on historical failures and troubling trends in education.
In 2020, education ministry launched IKS division called Bhāratīya Jñāna Paramparā Vibhāga, aiming to promote interdisciplinary & transdisciplinary research on indigenous knowledge.
Palshikar & Yadav, who were chief advisers for political science textbooks, asked NCERT to take their names off last year too, but council refused citing its status as copyright owner.
In the revised NCERT books, Babri Masjid has been termed 'three-domed structure' & several topics have been deleted, including 'rath yatra' and communal violence after demolition.
NCERT says that without these revisions, made in the Class XI political science textbook, the chapter on secularism came across as a 'justification of vote bank politics'.
Haryana proposes students be taught that Maharishi Kanada is father of atomic theory not John Dalton. YSRCP-led Andhra says need to 'not succumb to superstition in name of antiquity'.
On 29 May 1951, Jawaharlal Nehru defended adding 'reasonable restrictions' to Article 19, arguing that free speech must be balanced with national security and unity.
This is the game every nation is now learning to play. Some are finding new allies or seeing value among nations where they’d seen marginal interest. The starkest example is India & Europe.
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